


The Girl Who Read Too Well

by raven_aorla



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Ninjas - Freeform, Other, Unrequited Love, the good steamship Serenity, victorian!firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 23:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not my characters. Inspired by sherlockkink. Holmes' new client has a brilliant sister who has been rendered insane with uncanny deductive abilities beyond Holmes' own. Who could have done such a thing?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girl Who Read Too Well

I am thoroughly used to seeing all sorts of odd characters consulting with Holmes, but much less used to encountering someone I knew already.

"Dr. Tam!" I exclaimed upon entering the sitting-room.

"Dr. Watson. It has been far too long," the young man said, rising to shake my hand. We had never been friends - his arrogance and coldness rivaled Holmes' - but I had respected him even as my colleagues resented how effortless every aspect of medicine seemed to be for him. He was dressed very neatly and stylishly, with the unusual touch of a silk waistcoat embroidered with looping dragons.

Holmes looked from one of us to the other. "Dr. Tam, you appear too young to have been at school with Watson and then to have spent, oh, five years in the Orient studying their more exotic methods, predominantly in China. This points to a hereditary precociousness shared with your sister."

"Sister?" I murmured, perplexed as I took a seat across from Holmes.

Holmes tilted his head towards the window, and with a start I noticed a young woman, more a girl really, a slip of long muscle and sinew dressed in a loose-fitting gown and bare feet. She turned her face to me with a simultaneously vacant and piercing smile. "Soldier and a doctor too, a faithful friend and something more. You guard the dark and hold the candle though you're flickering yourself."

Her voice was sweet yet it chilled me thoroughly. Her dress and manner spoke more of a changeling than a human youth.

"Dr. Watson, you know me, and Mr. Holmes, you have no doubt deduced a fair amount of my character and circumstances. So you will fully understand my meaning when I tell you that Rivera, called "River" by friends and family, until recently made me seem an idiot child by comparison. Her intellect dazzled us from the moment she began to speak and taught herself how to read. Science, philosophy, mathematics - all these subjects unlikely for a girl-child to reach proficiency in came as naturally to her as dance, which she loves just as much."

"The Inspector only dances alone," Rivera said with a laugh, weaving her fingers through her long and unruly black hair.

"I believe that a child that shows aptitude should be encouraged and educated, regardless of sex, and I was able to convince our parents of this. We sought out a school that would share such views and allow Rivera to make use of her mind. And then..." here regret and vulnerability showed in his face and voice, something previously unknown in my dealings with him, "her letters to me became strange. Garbled. Disconnected. They were utterly out of character, and I began to suspect something was wrong."

Rivera was now curled at Holmes' feet. He did not seem to mind the impropriety. "Violins and science. You should stop injecting. Drugs are bad for your health. Your companion doesn't like it."

"How does she...?" I blurted out, but Holmes silenced me with a look and steepled his fingers, nodding to show Dr. Tam he was listening.

"I realized it was a code, and when I finally broke it I found the message that there were surgeons...chemists...hypnotists...I have no idea what else...driving her mad. Playing with her brain. Making her into something else. Against her will. And they were doing it to others."

"Simon?" she quavered, shivering and looking about wildly, as if the enigmatic calm she had previously exhibited was a thin layer over a whirling storm of fear.

Shedding his own sense of decorum, Dr. Tam crouched on the floor and gathered her into his arms. "It's all right, River. These are kind men. They will help us."

"Two by two, hands of blue. Two by two..." here she began to weep. It would have taken a harsher man than me not to be affected, both by her mental ruination and her brother's tenderness.

"My father was unwilling to believe this conclusion, calling it a wild theory born of too much opium in foreign climes. He was unwilling to recall River from the school. The considerable tuition expense was non-refundable. When I attempted to visit her I was met with refusal and hostility under trumped-up excuses. After a lengthy and costly investigation, I established that a secret society was using this school as a front for unknown machinations, but no more than that. I managed to break her out - it truly resembled a prison rather than any type of educational institution - but I am now disinherited and at a loss for how to seek justice."

"Could you not simply show your sister to your father and prove your case?" I asked.

Tam sighed and shook his head. "I received a threatening letter stating that if I take this tale to my family or the police, I will be killed and River will simply be taken again. Having seen the scope of their operation, I do not doubt that they are capable of such."

Holmes took a deep breath. "A remarkable story, and however improbable I know you are telling the truth. What exactly do you wish from me?"

"I need help finding what was done to her, and why. Only then can I hope to heal her. In addition, there were many other young men and women imprisoned there, and I would not like to simply leave them to their fate. I cannot pay you very much. I am supporting myself and my sister solely by my own practice, which has been difficult to establish due to my need to work under an assumed identity."

His having made no mention of regaining his fortune or in any way making himself more comfortable increased my admiration of him.

Having spoken to Tam, Holmes turned to Rivera. "My dear, what can you tell me about myself?"

She untangled herself from her brother's arms and stalked about the room, her hands behind her back. "Bohemian moods. Cocaine a bit, tobacco a bit more, frustration and boredom most of all. You see through bodies and into souls with the little hints of day. He is your only true friend. You have a fear of closeness, of touch, of having dependency on anything but the two pounds of gray matter in your head. You're not very nice to the dog, but then you're not very nice to anyone; there's a difference between being nice and being good." Suddenly she switched her gaze to me. "Semper fidelis. You will have to learn that you can share."

"Enough, River," her brother said softly.

She laughed, girlishly. "Don't ask if you don't want!"

"This case interests me sufficiently that I am willing to be paid in kind rather than in money," Holmes concluded, rising to his feet and shaking Rivera's hand as if she were an equal.

"What is your price, then?" Tam asked, raising an eyebrow.

"If your sister would be so obliging as to help me solve a few other cases I am having trouble with."

....

Holmes and Tam were entering into the finer details of negotiation and exchanging cards, Tam's under the alias of "Dr. Malcolm Brown", when Rivera tugged at her brother's sleeve.

"Leave me here."

"Oh no, no, River, we don't want to impose on these gentlemen."

"Not safe where you are, not for me. The landlord has ideas for pretty girls when their brothers are asleep, and he has the key."

All three of the men present blanched. "Has anything happened yet?" Tam asked, his voice shaking.

"Not yet. Tonight. Please leave me here."

"Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, may act as chaperone. Rivera can take one of our rooms. Holmes and I can share for a little while, can we not?"

Holmes looked at me sideways and visibly restrained a facial expression, but nodded assent.

She grinned and wrapped her arms around him. "See now. Safe here. Until you have money for somewhere better."

"I will return with your clothes then, xiao meimei." Tam kissed the top of her head. "Thank you very much, sirs. She – she can get a little fitful at times, as you saw. Will that be all right?"

"No worse than a perfectly well soldier screaming that he can't feel his limbs," I responded lightly, though Tam's eyes met mine with an acknowledgement of past hardships (no matter his were different than mine).

She stroked his cheek. "Zaijian, gege. Ni bu yong bu haoxin, dong ma?"

"Zaijian. Gentlemen, thank you again and adieu." Tam departed with a small backwards glance to make sure she was in good spirits at the separation.

"Chinese, I am assuming?" I asked, wondering what we were getting ourselves into.

Holmes smiled. "Qing lai le, xiaojie." And he offered her his arm. She curtseyed and followed him up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" I asked, trailing after.

"She needs to decide which room she likes better."

"Yours is a fright!"

"We must allow her free agency, Watson."

Mrs. Hudson accepted the fiction that Rivera – or River, as she was now insisting we call her – was Holmes' niece whose house had burned down, thus leaving her with only a few dresses and a pair of boots she was reluctant to wear. Her brother and guardian was staying in an inn too rough for a young lady; her parents had passed on, alas.

We decided to make her Holmes' relation rather than mine because it was so much easier to wave away her oddities with references to heredity and some of the clan being more far gone than others. Mycroft had come to tea a few times and this was not a difficult idea to get across.

Indeed, our landlady seemed to glory in having a gentle girl to take care of after years with unmanageable bachelors perpetually staggering home covered in mud and wounds, and fussed over her dinner and bath until River started to twitch from excessive pressure to act graciously. Holmes succeeded in distracting Mrs. Hudson by setting his napkin on fire, even making it look entirely accidental.

River chose Holmes' room in all its slovenliness, perhaps because she was instantly drawn to his books and monographs. She examined a monograph on the types of soil to be found in England and how to recognize it upon clothing, written by Holmes himself, and said, "You misspelled 'muschelkalk', Sherlock."

"How did you know his Christian name?" I cried.

Holmes rolled his eyes. "It's written on the monograph, old chap. Perhaps you should go to bed soon?"

Approximately twenty minutes later, once we were sure River was settled, I gave Holmes a piece of my mind about his comment. In bed. He did not appear too bothered by my upper hand, but he seldom was.

"Oh, she can have my room; Holmes and I can share," Holmes squeaked in an exaggerated parody of my voice.

"Do shut up," I growled, silencing him with a kiss.

Then he tensed. "Er, John?"

I bit his shoulder. "I thought I told you to be quiet."

"Look up, would you?"

I looked at the ceiling and nearly fell out of bed. I believe I yelled something not fit for ladies' ears, and then I hastily wrapped a sheet around myself.

River, clad only in a nightgown, was clinging to a corner of the ceiling, using two walls and the sturdy hook ostensibly for hanging a punching bag for purchase. She looked highly amused.

Holmes recovered first, and managed to infuse his words with jocularity. "How long have you been up there, darling?"

"Very nice show you have," she replied sweetly.

"For God's sake don't fall," I pleaded.

"I won't." She leapt to the floor without any apparent effort. "See?"

I managed to snag a dressing gown from the chair and put it on without further losing modesty. "River, you may have not understood what you saw, and I need to reassure you…"

She held up her hand. "I couldn't sleep. You love each other. I could hear it and taste it. I needed to see it. I won't tell. If I started telling others' secrets there'd be no end."

"It is discourteous to spy on people's private affairs," Holmes said.

She stared at him. "Do you ever do anything else?"

After a stunned moment, he laughed. "Touche. How about we make a bargain, River?"

"Yes?"

"If you keep this between the three of us, and don't come into the room without knocking and being granted permission, you may hear whatever song you like on the violin before going to sleep."

She lit up in a smile. "Vivaldi is my favorite. I'll be expecting you in five minutes." Then she skipped off.

"I think we have found depravity that exceeds your own," I said slowly, wiping my brow.

Holmes gave me a brief embrace. "I think she understands that she would be in a tremendous amount of trouble herself if her brother knew her activities. Wait for me, will you please?"

"Of course."

I was feeling drowsy from the effects of the music, but I became alert again when Holmes returned. "It was quite lucky her brother rescued her when he did," Holmes murmured.

"Why? I mean, besides the obvious?"

"She was clearly being groomed to be an assassin."

.....

I knocked on Holmes' door in the morning. "Rivera - I mean, River? Would you like to come down for breakfast?"

"Must match. Must match. Must match," she chanted in a toneless hum, and there were odd ripping sounds.

"Are you all right, child?"

"It looks better in brown. They're coming."

"Are you decent?"

"Sneezes are not sufficient!"

I took the risk and opened the door. The girl was wearing a gown but no corset, stockings, or shoes, and she was kneeling on Holmes' bed and peeling off the wallpaper.

"Stop that!"

She spared me a glance of derision. "They're going to come and it'll all be up to me."

"What's the fuss?" Holmes asked, coming up behind me. He was clothed only in drawers and a dressing-gown.

I gestured at the chaos, spluttering. Holmes, not burdened by anything resembling embarrassment, immediately stalked into his room and wrapped his arms around the girl, immobilizing her firmly, but not roughly. "You may commit vandalism when you are the one paying the rent."

She struggled feebly and scowled. "I can kill you with my brain."

Not at all daunted, Holmes responded, "I assure you, so can I. Now will you desist?"

"Yes. Someone's at the door."

"Don't try to change the subject. Now will you explain to me why -" Then the doorbell rang.

I, being the only person in the house adequately dressed, answered it. I pushed away my speculations on how River had predicted their arrival.

Two similar-looking men in well-cut suits stood at the door. "I'm sorry, but Mr. Holmes is not yet receiving clients. At ten o'clock he will be available."

"This is extremely urgent," one of the men said, his voice even and mechanical.

"We may not need Holmes' services at all."

"Do let us in."

"I'm sorry, but..." Yet they elbowed past me as if they were invited.

I noticed they were both wearing white gloves. They sat on the sofa with rigid backs and cold eyes. "We were hired by Lord Tam to find his abducted daughter of seventeen, though she looks younger. We traced her way to this street."

"No one in the house has seen a young lady of that age come by in some time," I replied, feeling very uncomfortable.

"There is a very large reward," the other man said.

"Very large."

"The increase of money does not change the facts, and I regret to say you are wasting your time. Good morning."

"Watson is too kind. Get out," I heard Holmes say from behind me.

"The esteemed Sherlock Holmes!"

Holmes had evidently borrowed my revolver. He pointed at one of the men now. "Go. You have no business with us."

"You surely have misunderstood us."

"Oh? Take your gloves off." They remained still. Holmes fired a warning shot into the floorboards, just short of the rightmost man's foot.

"We'll be back," that man said, still calmly. His partner tipped his hat.

Holmes slammed the door after them, then locked and bolted it. "The Hands of Blue! Watson, we must leave and find Tam at once."

"How did you know they were dangerous? You were upstairs."

"River shrieked and hid in the closet upon hearing their voices. She may suffer from madness, but I believe a victim can remember her abusers. And I saw they wore gloves. It appears she has been trained with deductive powers similar to my own, but with her fragmented psyche she is unable to describe the steps that lead to her conclusions. Thus, even her ravings contain insights we would do well to decipher."

I nodded. "Do you think you can coax her out of the closet?"

"We have developed a rapport."

............

"River?"

"Not coming out."

"They've gone away now, River."

She wrapped several items of clothing around herself and curled inwards against the darkened corner. "Needles in my eyes, asking what I see. The princess found a pea under her mattresses by cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting."

"The three of us need to go and warn your brother."

"I insist that you wear shoes when we go outside," I added, feeling like the villain but knowing that it needed to be said.

"Yes, mother."

………

We entered the second cab we came across; knowing that taking the first one was an unnecessary risk. River sat hugging her knees across from Holmes, who was beside me. Her large, dark eyes regarded the view outside. "That woman is unfaithful to her husband."

"And that child is in fact not an orphan, but a runaway," Holmes replied, gesturing out the window.

River spotted the boy and nodded. "His master beats him excessively, one might say sadistically."

"I know how I know that, but do you know how you know?"

She shook her head, tightening her shoulders and looking frightened. "I can't shut them out."

It did not take long to find her brother's lodgings, on a seedy street with ramshackle constructions, a sign announcing medical services in the window. I wondered about his clientele, especially with his inability to show credentials at the risk of broadcasting his identity, and felt a renewed sense of justice at having taken in his delicate sister.

"Dangerous," she whispered upon alighting.

"You believe he has been discovered?" I asked, fingering my revolver. Holmes wrapped his hand tightly around his singlestick.

"Yes," she whispered, trembling.

Holmes knocked on the door. "Doctor Tam?" Without saying anything, I knew he had entrusted River to my care.

The door swung open when he turned the knob. "Come in, it isn't locked!" Tam said.

"Simon!" River cried, instantly relieved, rushing inside. Naturally I followed her.

Perhaps I should not have been so surprised at being immediately chloroformed.

I awoke into dimness and found myself tied hand and foot, and gagged. I glanced to the side and found that Holmes and a very frightened young lady unknown to us as well.

Tam was bound to a chair and had his head bowed in shame. "I wouldn't have led you into a trap, meimei, but they would have violated and killed Miss Lee."

"They" were four men all in black, masked in cloth but for their eyes. One sat in a chair across from Tam, playing idly with a small dagger. Two others held River fast. The fourth stood between me and Holmes with an Oriental sword drawn, prepared to stop any escape attempts.

"You will tell us who else knows about your sister," Dagger-man said quietly, almost conversationally.

"I may have told a few news reporters, the police, a large paying audience at the theatre, and a troop of travelling circus performers," Tam drawled, sneering.

"Do not toy with me, Doctor."

River strained against the strong arms that held her. "Don't hurt Simon!"

Dagger-man chuckled. "Just be glad you're too valuable to harm, girl." And he sliced across Tam's cheek.

My shock at the coming scene was so great that I must make an effort to recount it coherently.

River screamed her brother's name. Then she twisted her body in such a way that she was able to kick one of the men away from her and into the wall. The other man she broke both wrists and his right leg.

She then threw his entire bulk, wracked with pain, straight at Dagger-man, briefly stunning him. Before he could react, she robbed him of his knife and stabbed him in the heart.

Sword-man rushed at her, but she leaped into the air and spun around, her boot connecting with his nose and breaking it. She just as swiftly divested him of his sword and sliced his head off – using her left hand, as the right one held the dagger.

Without pause after that, she approached each of the stricken but still living men and stabbed them to death.

At this point she was covered in blood, as were the walls and a good deal of the floor. I don't think any of we captives remembered to breathe until she cut the ropes binding her brother and fell into his arms crying. "Are you hurting very much, Simon?"

He was evidently as surprised as we. "I think I will be fine…" he said slowly, rubbing her back. "We should let out everyone else."

"Yes. And I'm not angry at you. I like Miss Lee and wouldn't want to see her hurt." She cut all of us loose in turn.

"You're going to need some help washing all that out of your dress," Miss Lee said once she could speak. She sounded like she was in shock.

River stood stock still. Softness returned to her expression, like the turning of a page. She looked around the room. She looked at her hands. "Simon…?" And then she swooned.

....

"What in the name of Heaven?" I began, but Holmes held up a finger to silence me.

"I do not wish to impugn your steadiness, Watson, but we have no time to wonder at these events. We must find some place to hide and regroup before evaluating the situation. Here, Dr. Tam, I'll hold your sister. You attend to Miss Lee."

"Where could we possibly go with a bloodstained girl and several dead…whatever those men were…"

"Ninjas, a type of Japanese warrior, in this case mercenaries," Holmes supplied helpfully, earning a look of annoyance from the distraught doctor.

"Several dead ninjas, then, in our wake? And what could we tell the authorities? Would we be believed? Where could we find shelter?"

Miss Lee brushed off Dr. Tam's support and spoke with newfound strength, and now that I had time to notice, a pronounced American accent and use of slang such as is common in its West. "We'll go to my ship Serenity. I was sent to befriend you and have you join us. That includes you two. C'mon. Our dock ain't far."

To my surprise (and I was amazed I still had capacity to be surprised after seeing a young woman mercilessly kill four armed and highly trained fighting men) Miss Lee had a cab driver waiting for her on a side street. She gave him a fistful of money, exchanged some words, bade him leave us and come fetch his vehicle by a specific point on the Thames, and took the reins herself. "Climb in before we're noticed," she ordered from the driver's seat.

Holmes lifted River into the cab with little strain - the girl was confounded light and fragile – and the rest of us ducked in.

"Do you need any help?" Dr. Tam called to Miss Lee as we set off. I noticed that despite all the confusion he had brought along his black bag. Good man, a doctor under all circumstances.

"Nah, I've been ridin' and drivin' my daddy's horses since I've been dressin' myself," she called back. "But don't distract me none. The traffic's awful."

"So independent, these prairie girls, eh, Watson?" Holmes remarked.

"I don't see how you're so cheerful when you and a very sick girl are drenched in blood," Dr. Tam said sharply.

"When Holmes is having an adventure he puts his sense of danger or worry aside," I explained with tenacious fondness, though I understood the young man's sentiment.

River's eyes opened. "You should let people compliment your object of wooing, Simon," she said, for all the world like she was in a position to give him lectures.

Dr. Tam immediately switched to his better and braver self. "Do you remember what happened back there, meimei?"

"Trigger was pulled. Gun went off. No more bullets in the chamber. Has to change the magazine. Has to reload before gun goes off again."

"You're not a gun, sister."

She slowly rose to a sitting position and regarded him with that simultaneously piercing and vacant stare. "No. I am far worse."

I held back my shiver so as not to distress her further. I reminded myself of what vengeance and aggression Holmes himself was capable of, especially if he felt I or an innocent victim were in danger. Yet he was still my friend and companion, his good humors not negated by the darkness also in his soul.

"I deduced that you and your fellow 'students' were being trained as assassins, but I did not expect such proficiency in unarmed combat," Holmes told her. "Am I right in saying that when this occurs you are in a dreamlike state of altered consciousness?"

River nodded and drew her limbs inward, her voice shaking. "They wanted a weapon so they broke a girl."

"Believe me, River, you are far more whole than you realize."

No one had time to respond to Holmes' uncharacteristic expression of warmth, because Miss Lee abruptly stopped the cab, leapt to the ground, and flung open the doors. "We must board, gentlemen."

The steamship Serenity was barely large enough to escape classification as a boat, with a barnacle-and-rust covered exterior. But the deck was shining and clean, and the man who came to greet us was a well-groomed and hearty fellow with a long brown coat and clean-shaven face. "Good work, Kaylee, but did people have to get killed or something?"

"Not my fault, Cap'n, but them got killed deserved it. Do you think Lady Sarah could spare her bathtub for River and her clothes? I don't think a wet washcloth'll do it."

The Captain took in River's state with only a raised eyebrow. "I'm sure she'll make an exception. You go show her the way." Once she'd bustled River inside, he turned to us and began shaking hands.

"Captain Reynolds, I presume," Dr. Tam said. "I am very appreciative of your taking us in."

"This ain't a free ride, cuddly as we are. In our line of work we need a medical man of our own. You'll be earning yours and your sister's keep."

Dr. Tam opened and closed his mouth a few times. Finally he said, "Fair enough."

"What is your line of work, exactly?" I asked.

"Ah, the esteemed Doctor John Watson! And Sherlock Holmes himself! When I had Kaylee suggest to Tam that Holmes could be of assistance in his troubles, I hardly dared hope the both of you would come in the flesh. Please, come with me to the galley, to meet my crew and have such explanation as I'm capable of giving."

"Why do you call her 'Kaylee', Captain?" Dr. Tam asked.

"Her name's 'Katherine Lee', but she joined our crew disguised as a boy and had a trunk with the initial 'K' and her last name "Lee" written on it to hold her belongings. She told us her name was Keith. Lady Sarah found her out - quite a funny story actually…Come along…"

As we followed after, I whispered to Holmes, "Can we trust this man? Is he at all respectable?"

"It would be difficult to find one less respectable than this man, and I believe all the company he keeps. However, it would also be difficult to find a man of more honesty and courage."

I hoped Holmes spoke true, because the moment we were below decks we felt the lurch and rumble of the ship leaving port. For the time being, at least, we were trapped on Serenity.

.....

Captain Reynolds led us to a galley far more reminiscent of a modest but comfortable sitting and dining room than the interior of any small steamer I had seen. A long, pale wooden dining table took up most of the space, rustically hewn chairs lining the sides, with gentle lamps bathing the place in soft light. Off in one corner was a lower, smaller table surrounded by cushions, presumably for sitting. An immense wooden chest was bolted securely to the wall, with a bit of tablecloth peeking from the hastily shut bottom drawer. At the far end of this room were several closed doors and a staircase.

"If you two gentleman would take seats, I'll go retrieve my first mate and we'll be able to explain everything so far as we understand it. Won't be but a minute." With these genial but not altogether helpful words, the Captain was off through one of the doors, trailed by a swirl of his long brown coat.

"Holmes," I whispered urgently across the table when we were alone, "have we technically been kidnapped?"

If it were not for the faint frisson of excitement that always enlivened Holmes at the start of a case, he would have appeared unpardonably relaxed. He went so far as to lean back in his chair and splay out his legs in seeming indolence. "Of course not, my dear Watson. I seriously doubt these people intend us harm, except perhaps whatever danger in which they themselves regularly swim; and we are not being held for ransom. If I were to name the situation, I would say that we have been offered unconventional shelter. The game is…"

"Afloat?" I suggested.

"That's the spirit."

Captain Reynolds returned with what was unmistakably a Negro woman, quite dark and with long curly hair, and in men's clothes no less. Her steely gaze brooked no comment, and she had a revolver strapped to her hip (in the cowboy fashion) that gave me pause. "Hello, Mister Holmes and Doctor Watson," she said quietly, taking a seat across from me without unstiffening her spine one iota.

Reynolds sat by her side, directly across from Holmes. "May I introduce my trusted second-in-command…"

"…Companion in battle, unlikely as that may sound – and….blood relative of some sort," Holmes added, in his grand tradition of showing off at every opportunity.

The captain acknowledged Holmes' deductions with a slight, brief smile, but continued without breaking his stride by seeking explanation. "Zoe Washburne is my half-sister, and I had some serious issues with my Pa and the society I lived in when I discovered the relation. He was a preacher and enslaved his own daughter, which said plenty of unpleasant things about the laws of both man and God to me. I wouldn't have known but for my Ma's dyin' confession. There was a strong danger of me gettin' drafted for the South and Zoe being sold away – so we ran north and both of us joined the Union."

"Disguised, naturally?" I asked.

She raised an eyebrow, as if she thought I was casting aspersions upon her. "I wasn't the only one in our regiment. It's easier for a woman to spot another, running from cruel husbands or towards what little freedom they can find."

"After the war Zoe was free, but things haven't improved a great sight more for folk like her, and I wasn't going to let the woman who saved my life several times and is the best friend I have in this world be treated second-class by no-one. With my sergeant's pension and my family inheritance, we were able to buy this boat and be our own masters."

"Won't find a finer crew," Zoe assured us.

"This mean we can come in now and meet the nice people?" a cheery, male, and American-accented voice called from one of the rooms.

"You might as well, seeing as you're all eavesdropping anyhow," Reynolds replied, sounding stern but with laughter in his eyes.

A deep, magisterial voice protested, "I was merely mending the doorknob." At this came a stifled giggle, perhaps from Miss Lee.

They trooped out in force then, what I later found out was everyone on the ship but for the Tams and Lady Sarah, who was assisting the siblings. A man wearing a heavily embroidered shirt in colorful patterns sat next to Zoe. He was a small, quick fellow, with a luxuriant mustache and a sweet smile. "My name's Washburne, but you can call me 'Wash'," he said, shaking Holmes' hand and then mine. "I'm the pilot of Serenity."

"Excuse me…" I stammered, not wishing to be rude but still knocked off my perch, "Zoe introduced herself as…"

"Oh, we're not officially married," Wash replied breezily, "but whatever laws authority chooses to make on land don't bother us on the open sea. I love Zoe as any man has loved his wife, and that's enough for us."

Zoe cautiously took his hand, gauging our reactions, and broke into a smile so hesitant and heartfelt that it melted my sense of propriety.

"Watson and I are hardly in a position to condemn you…" I kicked Holmes under the table, though his sentence could be interpreted entirely innocently. "I wish you the best domestic felicity possible under such trying circumstances."

Another man interrupted any other pleasantries we could have made to bridge over the awkwardness by spitting loudly at the wall.

The captain thumped his hand on the table. "Jayne, we agreed on no tobacco in the galley, smoked or otherwise! You're taking the next cleaning shift."

The uncouth man was a lumbering mass of muscle, with a wide leather hat and nothing above the waist but an undershirt. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat that he wiped from his brow, scowling but ceasing to chew. "If we had a spittoon I'd spit in there."

"If wishes were horses, we'd be mighty crowded in here," Reynolds replied. "Come back when you can be civil to these gentlemen."

The man with an incongruous name grumbled his way to somewhere he could deposit the tobacco.

"You'll have to excuse Jayne," said the last of our new acquaintances, the one who'd claimed to be mending a doorknob earlier. He was a Negro as well, simply but neatly attired in black and with his hair knotted into little braids down his skull. The hair was white and the lines on his face were obviously those of an elderly man, but he was lean and strong, nothing frail in his demeanor. "He's a reformed Australian convict and the reforming process has still quite a ways to go."

"Has he ever explained to you about his name, or does he strike down anyone who dares ask?" Holmes inquired drily.

Kaylee chuckled. "His mother had four boys already and desperately wanted a girl. He seems to have forgiven her though, sending her a portion of his wages and whatnot. It keeps 'im from being too mean." I noticed she was no longer in a dress but in ripped and oil-smeared trousers and a vest full of well-used tools, with her hair tied back with ribbon and a smudge upon her face.

"May I congratulate you in succeeding as a ship's mechanic despite the obstacles of your sex and the traditional mores of society?" Holmes asked.

"Not your most challenging deduction," I muttered, earning myself a kick from Holmes.

She blushed like the schoolgirl she might have been in another life. "I've always loved machines and knew how to make 'em purr and sing, but everyone home said it was no business for girlfolk. I thought it best to find a ship where no one knew me and make 'em think I was a boy. Once I found out the first mate of Serenity was a woman I felt so silly, but I was afraid the cap'n would be angry if he found out I'd lied to 'im."

"It was actually pretty hilarious how Lady Sarah found her out," Wash began, but Captain Reynolds nudged him silent.

"Now that most of us are here," Reynolds said, "it's time to let the two of you know how we need your help and how our current jobs are intersecting. We'll go into more detail when the entire party is present. But the sum of it is that we have been hired by a gentleman named Badger, who is in turn in the pay of a dozen or so anxious families wanting to know why their children at an expensive, fancy academy ain't writing, visiting, or allowing visitors. Apparently Scotland Yard has been of no assistance and has dismissed their fears. We were able to ferret out someone who knew of the only student to have returned from the Academy."

"Rivera Tam," Holmes and I said simultaneously.

"Exactly. So it's a blessing we've got her and her brother on board."

"Along with the most brilliant crime-solving duo of the day!" Kaylee said brightly.

"Most engaging," Holmes replied, and from the delight in his voice I knew we would certainly have to see this to the end.

....

I know full well what religion and the law say about inversion. I stopped believing them the moment Sherlock Holmes kissed me; and the bliss that shot through me had such a tang of divinity in it I resolved I'd rather spend Hell with him than Heaven without.

The surprising part, though, was that I still maintained a healthy interest in women. I eventually came to terms with it as being the logical course. Do they not preach that the human body is but a form of clothing for the soul? And were one to love a person, would it not follow that one would love them no matter what clothes they wore? And is it not possible to find more than one costume eminently attractive?

I say all this so you will not be too confused when I confess that the Lady Sarah's entrance took my breath away. She looked very much like an Afghan woman, or perhaps one of the lighter-skinned Parsees I had encountered in South Asia, with black hair that fell to her waist and a red silken gown, a white pearl at her honey-colored throat. Her lips were coral and tender as a rosebud, her eyes a deep chocolate, her hands soft and refined.

Behind her came the Tam siblings, River in a yellow frock slightly too short and wide for her tall, thin frame, the doctor cleaned up from our earlier ordeal.

Lady Sarah pressed her hands together in an Asiatic greeting. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson."

Holmes returned the gesture. "We are honored to meet a High Priestess of the Cult of Radha."

Her smile did not fade. Rather, it stilled. "How did you…"

"There is a tattoo on the inside of your left wrist. I've always found it both fascinating and worthwhile to study secret societies, particularly ones related to the workings of the Empire."

"And here I was just thinking you were but a fancified whore," Captain Reynolds mused.

She glared at him. "Better than a petty thief."

"My work ain't always legal, but at least it's honest."

"Look at the adults flirt," River murmured. I suppressed a smile.

"Well, technically she's a spy and courtesan," Holmes said in tones that were meant to be soothing, if the words themselves weren't. "Radha, for those of you not familiar with Hindu mythology, was the lifetime love of the god Krishna, yet she never married him. The Cult of Radha teaches accomplished, high-caste women to be companions, mistresses, and assistants to the Rajas and men who serve them. Rather than being mere props in political alliances like their wives, they are genuinely educated in the workings of government and are meant to be intellectual equals of their patrons. Your presence on this ship would indicate your decision to freelance, providing emotional support and guidance to multiple men both English and Hindu, rather than stay with one princeling, yes? Or did he die?"

"That's a story for another time, if you haven't read it already in my every move," she said, gracefully seating herself, her face settling into a lovely but taciturn mask.

"I've been fascinated by your organization ever since I heard of them – it speaks of women having so much more potential than they are often allowed to exercise."

"Why are you named Sarah, then?" I asked.

"My name is Inara Serra. The crew calls me 'The Lady' as a little joke, since I seem so much more respectable than the rest of them, while your English morality would call me crueler names."

"Well, that's all very interestin', mate, but can we be gettin' back to the job now?" the man known as Jayne interrupted brusquely.

"Were you two briefed on the manner?" Captain Reynolds asked Dr. Tam.

"No, Captain." I noticed he was looking at Kaylee, dressed in workmen's clothes with grease smudged on her face, with a mixture of surprise and interest. She seemed more confident in this garb, as if it were more true to her real disposition, and if one looked past the impropriety (which one did constantly on the Serenity), than it made her even prettier than before.

"We've been hired to rescue the other students at the Academy you pulled your sister from. She wasn't the only highborn child taken, and some of the parents have been less neglectful than yours, willin' to pay plenty a dime to get 'em back. All we know is that it's on the coast somewhere. We'd be mighty grateful if you could show us how to get there and provide any other assistance, both bein' familiar with the territory and bein' a doctor, and in exchange you'll get a cut of the money once we succeed. You're also welcome to stay as part of the crew. Mighty lot of injuries happen on this boat, type of life we lead."

Tam nodded. "I'm much obliged. And it would be terribly negligent of me to not try to assist the other imprisoned children when I have the opportunity."

"Shall I get the map so we can chart our course, sir?" Zoe asked.

"If you'd be so kind. Wash, we'll need you to see how much coal we've got and whether it's enough to get us there once we know where 'there' is. Jayne, back to the boiler, it don't shovel itself. Book, you're makin' dinner tonight, but first get the doc – Tam, not the other one - to the infirmary and help him with anythin' else he might be needin', make everything shipshape afore one of us gets shot or stabbed again."

"A common occurrence, Captain?"

"You'd be surprised, even an old soldier like yourself, Dr. Watson."

"'Nara, if you'd go to your cabin and get out those letters from the Magistrate, I'll be consultin' with you about them in about an hour, since you're so good at the pretty wordin', get us out of that legal conundrum. Other than that do as you please. Kaylee, show these gentlemen their bunk – I'm afraid you'll have to share…"

"I think you'll be able to cope, am I right?" Wash asked with a wink. When I started he patted my hand. "Hey, what's a little sodomy compared to miscengenation? We're all degenerates here."

Zoe smiled and kissed him. "One man in a million." She then headed to find the necessary props for navigation. The other members of the crew took this as their signal to disperse.

River drew her knees to her chest and clutched at them. "Black woods and the white man's burden," she whispered. "Lest we forget."

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE THIS PREMISE SO MUCH and feel really really bad that I don't know how to continue it. Anyone who wants to adopt this is welcome.


End file.
